The image above shows two wooden sculptures, a honey bear and a woodsman (Waldmensch in German), as arranged along an 8.5 kilometer route between Neuler and Niederalfingen, communities located in Germany, some 70 km south of Frankfurt.
The route includes a total of 83 sculptures made by non-professional sculptors.
Cinderella
Court Jester
Creation of the sculpture trail
Hubert Schull, living in Neuler, was an artist and teacher at a technical school, who dreamed that there would be a sculpture trail near his hometown. In 2001, on his initiative, a number of former pupils of the school and non-professional artists, living in various communes in the region, gathered to crystallize this idea.
Under the name Sculturies they formed a group of non-professionals with a passion for making wooden sculptures. The group focussed on the creation of a sculpture trail in the woods, connecting Neuler and Niederalfingen.
Angel
The project started in Neuler. The sculptures for this first part of he trail were created from the beginning of November 2001 until the end of February 2002. With the help of a local construction company the 16 wooden sculptures were set up on March 16, 2002 along a circular route in Neuler .
Thereafter 31 sculptures were created for the 2.5 km circular route in Niederalfingen, which opened in 2005.
Then, until 2009, sculptures were made for the trails connecting the two circular ones, a series of 17 sculptures near the Krähenbachtal and a series of 19 sculptures near the Schlierbachtal.
Faun
Most sculptures along the trail show that the basic material is formed by a man-sized stump of a large tree. There are a lot of stand-alone creations, but also a number of mixed ones, such as a scene with the Wolf and the Seven Goats, as well as the scene in the image below with the Town Musicians of Bremen (this sculpture by the way is a replica of the original one in Bremen, see Wikipedia).
A number of the stand-alone sculptures depict a fairytale character, such as Cinderella, Puss in Boots, Hansel and Gretel, Hameln's Pied Piper and Nils Holgersson, others depict historical or mythical characters, such as a court jester, a woodsman, a faun or an angel.
Most of the sculptures are realistic in nature, but there are also some that depict an experience, such as the one about September 11 (the attack on the Twin Towers), a sculpture depicting temptation and another one called meeting the light.
The websiteSculturies has a map of the sculpture trail as divided into several parts and a detailed enumeration of all sculptures situated along it, this with titles of the sculptures, an explanation of what each sculpture depicts and the names of the artists who created them.
Wooden sculptures in the open air are vulnerable. In 2018, members of Sculpturiesrenovated a number of sculptures from the route in Niederalfingen. The other routes will also get the necessary attention.
Town Musicians of Bremen
Documentation
* WebsiteSculturies, with extensive explanation of the location of the sculpture trail, the titles and themes of all sculptures and the names of the artists involved
* WebsiteSkulpturenrundweg Niederalfingen with information as in the above website, but only relating to the route in Niederalfingen
* Prospectus with information about the sculptures in Neuler and the artists who made them
Video
* Video by Werner Schäffer (YouTube, 3'40"), stills of the sculptures in Niederalfingen
Collective of non-professionals
Sculpture trail
from Neuler to Niederalfingen
region Ostalbkreis, Baden-Württemberg federal state, Germany
picture (October 2022) courtesy of Tiramisu Bootfighter
When Tiramisu Bootfighter from France with his Galerie Ambulante traveled around Eastern Europe in the fall of 2022, he found in the Romanian village of Ohaba the decorated house of Gheorghe and Cornelia Dobrin in the condition as shown in the image above.
The house was falling into disrepair, Gheorghe Dobrin had died in 2021 and Cornelia Dobrin had left for an unknown destination
this image and the next five (April 2013) from Facebook
As the image above, dated April 2013, shows, this art environment had seen better days.
It all started in 1992. When Gheorghe Dobrin in a nearby forest was chopping wood for a deaf neighbor, he came across a piece of wood with inscriptions, which reminded him of what happened in the forest of Ephraim. as described in the bible.
This probably refers to the biblical book of 2 Samuel 18, which describes the struggle in the forest of Ephraim of the then ten tribes of Israel against the tribes of David.
The experience Gheorghe gained in the forest touched him deeply. He took home the piece of wood which he considered sacred.
His sister Cornelia was apparently also struck by her brother's experience. The holy wood got a place of honor in the house and brother and sister started together to embellish house and garden with all kinds of decorations.
As can be seen in the image above, the short side of the house, especially on the top, was provided with collages with images and texts expressing religious themes
The long side of the house was also provided with numerous collages and decorations, both the wall and the ground floor in front of it.
In the available documentation, which is quite limited, it is also stated that icons were placed in front of the house, but the images do not show this.
What seems to be visible in the image below is a note in the documentation that the windows were covered, because of the fear of evil spirits. It can also be seen that the shutters on the windows were equipped with all kinds of decorations
So much for the description of the situation based on documentation dating from 2013
Gradually, the decay of the building must have continued. It is likely that Gheorghe and Cornelia Dobrinook lacked the financial means to carry out proper maintenance.
The situation Tiramisu Bootfighter encountered in 2022 was an abandoned building, which lay in ruins. The collages were gone, leaving only a few marks on the door and objects piled on the floor.
Documentation
* Article (2011) on weblog Jurnal de călătorie prin Tara Fagarasului (Travel diary through Fagaras Country), with images
* Note and a series of pictures (2013) on the Facebook-account of Locuri de vizitat in Romania
* Entry (October 19, 2022) on the FB page Galerie Ambulante, by Tiramisu Bootfighter
Gheorghe and Cornelia Dobrin Decorated house in disrepair Ohaba, region Tara Făgăraşului, Transsylvanië County, Romania
Doubice is a village with about a hundred permanent residents and many holiday stays in the Czech Republic. Located near the border with Germany, the village is a popular destination for holidaymakers who enjoy the Bohemian Switzerland National Park.
The village is also known for an extensive collection of wooden sculptures, which surround a local café-restaurant, named Stará Hospoda (Old Pub).
Life and works
The owner of this café-restaurant is Karel Rezek, who was born in the early 1950s.
Not much is known about his early years, except that he made a wooden fairytale figure for his three year old daughter Andrejka, a gesture that led him to take up a hobby of transforming pieces of wood into sculptures.
As the number of sculptures increased, Rezek was captivated by the desire to get into the Czech Book of Records, which he actually succeeded in 2012 when he -around sixty years old- had made 316 sculptures.
this picture and he next one from the website of the cafe-restaurant
Some twenty years earlier, around 1990, Rezek became the owner of the café-restaurant, which he runs with his wife.
The interior of the cafe is richly decorated with all kinds of collections, such as tin plates, weapons, musical instruments and a variety of bells.
And outside you can't miss the large collection of sculptures, often including large creations, such as the gigantic grasshopper Ferdy the Ant, but also devils, witches, fairytale characters, dragons and horses.
The two images below (from a regional tourist website) give an impression of the location of the site in the landscape and of the variety of sculptures in front of the cafe.
location of the site in the landscape
click to enlarge
sculptures in front of he café
click to enlarge
At the rear of the café-restaurant is a garden that has been transformed into a true children's paradise with various sculptures of animals and fairytale characters, as well as playground equipment, toy cars and a witch's house, all kinds of things for children to play and have fun with;
There are also sculptures of Křemílek and Vochomůrka, figures from a fairy tale well known in the Czech Republic, as can be seen on YouTube.
this picture from the website of the café-restaurant
Two other interesting aspects of Karel Rezek's site are first of all that every summer an international contest for woodcarvers is organized and secondly that there is also a collection of tanks from the period when the Czech Republic was communist.
pictures: screenprints from the video in the documentation
Jon Richards, an importer of watches from Bristol, once retired went to live with his wife Muriel Richards in Mappleborough Green, a village of some 540 inhabitants in the county of Warwickshire in the West Midlands region of England.
Warwickshire is known as the county with William Shakespeare's hometown Stratford-upon-Avon. In the circle of lovers of follies in England it is also known for its hand-built and decorated Chapel of the Crosses, locatedin the community of Mappleborough Green.
Creating a chapel
It all started around 2006. Jon Richards wanted to surprise his wife with a chapel in the backyard and said he was going to build a barn there to have a somewhat more spacious workshop.
It became a structure with a surface area of 8 by 12 feet (2.4 by 3.7 meters), measurements that would allow him to construct the building without first getting a planning permission.
When after some time of construction a Gothic window appeared on a side wall, Jon's wife Muriel realized that the new building wasn't workshop, but something else. Learning that it had to be a chapel, she was very enthusiastic and started to actively help with the further construction and furnishing.
Some details of the chapel
Outside the chapel is a stone baptismal font, as depicted above, taken from a garden in Leominster in Hertfordshire. This font was too large to fit into the interior.
The Gothic frames for the stained glass windows came from a yard in the Midlands and the glass windows were custom made by a friend who was a glazier.
The couple rescued full-length pews from a church in Hertfordshire in southern England and shortened them to fit two people per pew, allowing a total of 12 people to sit in the chapel (and a smaller number to stand).
Above picture depicts the chapel's centerpiece, a bronze sculpture of Jesus on the cross, 3,5 feet (around 1 meter) large, which came from a scrap yard in Bristol.
The altar had to be modified to fit and the stained glass windows had to be specially cut.
Jon considered installing an organ, but decided against it because it would take up too much space. Instead, there are speakers playing hymns from a CD player.
The tapestry below, depicting the Last Supper, was found on a market in Spain.
Other aspects
The name Chapel of the Crosses refers to the three crosses Jon Richards places on a neighboring hill to mark the Holy Week around Eastern. The center cross is taken along in a Good Friday procession that passes through the fields of the community.
The chapel's architecture is replicated from the local church in Mappleborough Green.
The vicar of the ecclesiastical region under which Mappleborough Green belongs is sympathetic to the chapel Jon and Muriel have created. The building is not officially consecrated as a church, but church services are held in which the vicar participates.
Jon and Muriel are also occasionally approached with the question whether a marriage can be solemnized in the chapel, but for this they don't have a permit.
A holiday accomodation on the premises
From 2010 the couple also runs a self catering holiday accommodation called Haye Pastures Farm. Guestsstaying in the cottages have free access to the chapel, which is open daily for this purpose. The experiences shared by holiday guests on relevant internet sites are in general all very positive.
Documentation * Article on the website Folly Fancier
